by A. J. Cronin
He undressed slowly, aware that Laura was watching him, taking a long time to arrange his keys, gold cigarette case and loose silver upon the chest of drawers. He even stood in his underwear, deliberately counting his money before he came over and sat upon the edge of the bed.
“Were you working out how much you’d give me?” she inquired in her controlled voice.
He broke into a roar of laughter, glad in a way to get rid of his simmering amusement in one explosive burst.
“As a matter of fact, Joe,” she went on in that same ironic manner, “I’ve just been thinking that I’m the one who’s done most of the giving. Cigarette case, watch, cuff links, all these little presents, the use of the car too. You even wangled this furniture out of me. Oh, I know you’re always going to give me the cheque and I don’t give a hang whether you do. I hope to God I’m not petty. It’s just that I wonder often whether you realise what I’ve done for you one way and another.”
He felt his biceps in high good humour.
“Well,” he said, “you did it because you wanted to.”
“So that’s the way you look at it?” She paused. “When I think how it began. That morning you came up about the counterfoils. A silly weak moment. And now this.”
“Ah,” he grinned sheepishly, “it’d have been the same in any case. You know you’re mad about me.”
“What a pretty way to put it. You know, Joe, I honestly believe you don’t care for me at all. You’ve simply used me, used me for all you were worth, used me to get on…”
“And haven’t I been some use to you?”
A silence.
“You’re an adept,” she said slowly, “at making me hate myself.”
“Ah, don’t say that now, Laura,” he protested. And, throwing off his singlet, he slipped into bed beside her. She gave a sigh that was almost a moan, as at her own weakness, her own desire, then turned upon her side, yielding herself to him.
They slept for about an hour afterwards, Joe rather restlessly. It always irked him that she clung to him after his own desire was satisfied. In their early days together it had gratified his vanity to demonstrate his own virility to her, to contrast his own fine body with Stanley’s obvious flabbiness. But now he was tired of that: he had no intention of depleting his physical resources for her. When she opened her eyes and looked at him he sustained her gaze across the pillow with a slightly mocking stare.
“Don’t you love me any more, Joe?” she asked.
“You know I do.”
She sighed: her eyes fell.
“Oh dear,” she said.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. You can be hateful when you choose. Sometimes you make me feel horrible.” A pause. “I am horrible, I daresay, but I can’t help it.”
He continued to look at her, conscious of that inward chuckle which had affected him all day. He had reached the subtlety of deriving a curious satisfaction from the play of emotion upon her face; he watched especially in their moments of climax, obtaining a sense of his importance as the mitigator of this inner turmoil. Yes, he was “the boss,” as he put it, right enough. He was still fond of her, of course, but it was good for her to feel her dependence on him once in a while. Now, since he saw she was in the mood for tenderness, he affected a playful briskness.
“I think we ought to have our tea,” he said. “I’m parched.”
He had begun to grin, when suddenly the telephone rang. Still grinning, he leaned across her and picked up the receiver.
“Hello,” he said. “Yes, this is Mr. Gowlan. Yes, Morgan…. Yes…. I don’t know, no I haven’t the least idea…. What!” Joe’s voice altered slightly. There was a longish pause. “Is that so…. Good God, you don’t say so… came to the office did it…. Yes, Morgan…. Yes, of course… I’ll be over shortly Yes, I’ll be over myself.”
Joe hung up the receiver, came back slowly to his own side of the bed. A silence followed.
“What was it?” Laura asked.
“Well—” Joe cleared his throat. “You see…”
“Well, what?”
He hesitated, picking at the edging of the sheet.
“A wire’s just come to the office.”
Laura raised herself in the bed. All at once she said:
“Is it Stanley?”
“It’s nothing,” Joe said hurriedly. “He’s absolutely all right. It’s only shell-shock.”
“Shell-shock,” Laura said. Her lips went quite pale.
“That’s all,” he answered. “Not a thing more.”
Laura pressed her hand against her brow.
“O God,” she said in an extinguished voice. “I knew something like this would happen, I knew it. I knew it.”
“But it’s nothing,” he repeated. “Don’t upset yourself. He isn’t scratched. He only got buried by a shell and they’ve sent him home to get over it. He’s not even wounded. I tell you, it’s nothing.” He tried to take her hand but she snatched it away.
“Leave me.” She burst into tears. “Leave me alone…”
“But he isn’t even wounded…”
She turned from him violently, jumped out of bed, and, sobbing, pulled off her nightdress. Naked, her white body bent, she fumbled at the chair, began to huddle on her clothes.
“But, Laura,” he said, protestingly. He had never seen her cry before.
“Be quiet,” she cried, “anything you say can only make it worse. You’ve done something to me. You’ve made me hate myself. And now Stanley… O God…”
Flinging on her jacket, she snatched up her hat and ran, bareheaded and sobbing, from the room.
He remained upon his elbow for a minute, then with a shrug of his bare shoulders he reached out towards the bedside table, yawned, and lit himself a cigarette.
FOURTEEN
It was the spring of 1916, nearly fourteen months since Hilda and Grace had come to nurse in London, and Hilda was happier than she had ever been. The disturbing changes in her father, all the painful echoes of the Neptune disaster, the whole grim business of Arthur’s imprisonment, as related in Aunt Carrie’s woeful letters, affected her very little. When Grace came to her, weeping: “Oh, Hilda, we must do something about Arthur. We can’t stay here and let this happen,” Hilda snapped: “What can we do? Nothing. Except keep out of it.” Whenever Grace attempted to broach the subject Hilda cut her short in this brusque fashion.
Lord Kell’s house was in Belgrave Square, a large mansion which had been stripped—except for the beautiful cut-glass chandeliers, a few pictures and some tapestry panels—and converted into an adequate hospital, for which purpose it was admirably suited. Six of the rooms were enormous, each as big as an average ballroom, with high ceilings and polished oak floors, and these became the wards. The big conservatory at the back was transformed to an operating theatre; and it was here that Hilda had her happiest moments.
Hilda had got on wonderfully at Belgrave Square; in six months she had at her finger ends as much as the average nurse acquires in a three years’ training. Already Miss Gibbs, the matron, had her eye upon Hilda as something quite out of the ordinary. Miss Gibbs had commended Hilda and moved Hilda to the theatre. In the theatre Hilda’s qualities seemed exactly right. Dark, self-contained and precise, Hilda functioned in that theatre with forbidding and unerring accuracy. Hilda’s spare-time studying had been extensive but it was her instinct, her temperament which made her so pluperfect. You looked at Hilda and saw that it was impossible for her to blunder. Mr. Ness looked at Hilda several times during her first week in the theatre, his quick darting glance, when Hilda had anticipated something which he required. Ness was the honorary, a short blunt gingery man who sweated offensively while he worked, but a wonder at abdominal surgery. Later, he suggested quietly to Miss Gibbs that Hilda might shortly be useful as his theatre sister.
When Hilda was told of Ness’s interest in her work she showed no elation—the signal honour, as Miss Gibbs euphoniously named it, left Hilda quite unmoved. She h
ad a little thrill of inward satisfaction, quickly suppressed, but she was not overcome. Success had firmed Hilda’s predetermination and set her ambition higher than before. When she stood by Ness watching him make his incisions, sutures and anastomoses, she did not fix her mind upon the time when as theatre sister she would intimately assist him in this work. No, she watched Ness operate and fixed her mind upon the day when she herself would operate. That was Hilda’s ambition, she had always wanted to be a doctor—a surgeon. Always. She was a little late in beginning, perhaps, but she was still young, only twenty-five. And since her miraculous emancipation from the Law Hilda had sworn to herself that nothing would stop her in achieving her goal. In the meantime Hilda was happy—she had an end in view, she had her work, and she had Grace.
Grace had not achieved Hilda’s crashing success, indeed Grace was not a success at all. Untidy, unpunctual, inaccurate—poor Grace had none of the qualities essential to success. While Hilda rose like a rocket to the giddy heights of the operating theatre, Grace remained scrubbing floors and basins in the basement. Grace didn’t mind. Grace was perfectly contented: so contented that she had twice been before Miss Gibbs’ for giving tea to patients’ wives in the ward kitchen and once for smuggling Gold Flake in to a sergeant disciplined for swearing at the ward sister. Grace, as Miss Gibbs did not hesitate to say, was incompetent, hopelessly incompetent—Grace would never be anything, Miss Gibbs said, unless she mended her ways.
But these ways were Grace; and nobody but Miss Gibbs and Hilda seemed to want Grace to mend them. Grace was a great favourite with the other nurses. At the nurses’ home, a house in Sloane Street, quarter of a mile away, there was always someone in Grace’s untidy little cubby hole begging or giving a cigarette, or a Bystander, or a gramophone record, or one of the make-believe chocolates that the war had produced. Or asking Grace out to tea or to the pictures, or to meet a brother home on leave.
Hilda hated this. No one came to Hilda’s austerely tidy room and Hilda did not want anyone to come: no one except Grace. Yes, Hilda wanted Grace, wanted Grace all to herself and with all her heart. She froze the friendly visiting, nipped Grace’s friendships in the bud.
“Why,” she scornfully remarked one morning towards the end of March, “must you go out with that Montgomerie creature?”
“Old Monty’s not a bad sort, Hilda,” Grace answered apologetically, “we only went to the Kardomah.”
“The woman’s impossible!” said Hilda jealously. “You must come out with me on your next half-holiday. I’ll arrange it.”
Hilda arranged most things for Grace, continued, in her possessive love, to dictate to Grace. And Grace—artless, simple and sweet-natured as ever—submitted cheerfully.
But Grace would not submit to Hilda about the letters. Grace did not argue, she did not contradict. On this point she simply refused to submit to Hilda. And these letters worried Hilda to death. Every week and sometimes twice a week the letters came from France, with the field postmark and the same handwriting, a man’s handwriting. Hilda saw that Grace was in close correspondence with someone at the front and at last Hilda could bear it no longer. One April evening, as she walked through the darkened streets to the home with Grace, Hilda said:
“You had another letter, to-day, another letter from France?”
Staring hard at the pavement in front of her Grace said:
“Yes.”
Because she was upset, Hilda’s manner became colder and more forbidding.
“Who is it writes to you?”
At first Grace did not answer. She flushed quickly in the darkness. But she did answer—there was never evasion or artifice about Grace.
“It’s Dan Teasdale.”
“Dan Teasdale.” Hilda’s voice was both shocked and scornful. “You mean Teasdale, Teasdale the baker’s son?”
Grace said very simply:
“Yes.”
“Good heavens!” Hilda burst out. “You don’t mean to say—well, in all my life I never heard anything so sickeningly idiotic—”
“Why is it idiotic?”
“Why?” Hilda sneered. “Why, indeed? Don’t you think it rather cheap to work up a romance with a baker’s lout?”
Grace was very pale now, and her voice extremely quiet.
“You can say unkind things, Hilda,” she said. “Dan Teasdale has nothing to be ashamed of He writes me the nicest letters I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t think there’s anything cheap about that.”
“You don’t,” Hilda said scathingly. “Well, I do. And I won’t have you behaving like an infatuated school-girl. Too many silly women have thrown themselves away already. Their war heroes!—oh, it’s disgusting, disgusting. You’ve got to stop these letters.”
Grace shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Hilda.”
“You’ve got to, I tell you.”
Grace shook her head again.
“I won’t,” she said. Tears stood in Grace’s eyes but there was a queer finality in her voice which knocked the rage right out of Hilda and really frightened her.
Hilda said no more that evening: but she took up an attitude and tried to coerce Grace by that attitude. She froze Grace, spoke to her cuttingly, generally ignored her with a sort of scornful contempt. This lasted for a fortnight and the letters still came.
Then in a secret panic Hilda suddenly changed. She unbent completely, apologised to Grace, petted and wheedled Grace and took Grace out to the Kardomah, a café greatly favoured by the nurses, for the nicest tea that money and Hilda’s influence with the proprietress could procure. For a whole week Hilda spoiled Grace and Grace received the spoiling as submissively as she had received the scolding. Then Hilda tried once again to persuade Grace to give up writing to Dan. No use, no use at all, Grace would not give up writing to Dan.
Hilda watched the letters, these abominable interminable letters, she went down early every morning to inspect the letter rack, in a kind of hatred. And then, one morning in June she noticed with a start that the postmark of the letter just arrived was Loughborough.
She stopped Grace after breakfast. In a controlled voice she asked:
“Is he wounded?”
“Yes.” Grace kept her eyes averted.
“Seriously?”
“No.”
“In hospital?”
“Yes!”
A secret relief flooded Hilda, deep down within herself she was overwhelmed by relief—Loughborough was a long way off, a very long way off. Since the wound was not serious Dan would soon be back in France. But her lip curled. She sneered:
“He really ought to have been brought here, of course. That’s how it happens in the best penny-farthing romances.”
Grace turned away quickly. Yet before she could go Hilda went on:
“So lovely for him to come out of the anæsthetic and find you by his bedside ready to fling your arms round his neck.”
The quivering in Hilda’s voice showed how much it hurt Hilda to say that—it hurt her horribly. Yet she had to say it. She was inflamed with jealousy.
Grace did not answer Hilda. She went into the ward carrying Dan’s letter in the pocket of her apron. She read it several times while she was on duty.
Dan had been in the big push in at the Somme, had been wounded in the left forearm and wrist. He would be well almost immediately, he wrote, his arm did not hurt him in the slightest, it was just that he could not use his hand.
Dan’s letters became irregular about the end of July, but on the evening of the very last day of the month as Grace walked down Sloane Street, she saw someone in uniform standing with his arm in a sling exactly opposite the home. She was alone and walking rather slowly for she was tired, saddened by the thought of Arthur, of all the changes at home in Sleescale. For once everything seemed wrong. Miss Gibbs had given her another lecture for untidiness, and she was upset at not hearing from Dan—it was amazing how much she had come to depend on these letters of Dan’s. At the sight of that figure in uniform she stopped,
not very sure. And then all at once she was sure. Her heart leaped within her breast. It was Dan. He crossed the street and saluted her.
“Dan! I thought… yes, I thought it was you.” The pleasure she felt at seeing him shone in her face; she did not feel tired now but, forgetting all about being tired and sad, she held out her hand.
Not speaking, he shook hands shyly. His shyness of her amounted almost to a disease, he seemed afraid almost to look at her. Grace had never seen anyone afraid of her before, it was so ridiculous she wanted to laugh and cry at once. Quickly, before she should do anything so stupid as that, she said:
“Have you been waiting, Dan? Didn’t you go into the home?”
“No,” he said, “I didn’t want to be worrying you. I thought I might see you for a minute as you went in.”
“A minute!” She smiled again; suddenly she looked at his wounded arm.
“How is your arm?”
“They’ve had some trouble with the wrist… the tendons,” he said. “I’m sent up here for orthopædic treatment at the Langham clinic. Electricity and one of these new exercise machines. Six weeks’ treatment before I can go back.”
“Six weeks!”
Her gasp of pleasure almost reassured him. He said awkwardly:
“I was wondering if you, that’s to say if you wouldn’t mind… if you hadn’t anything better to do…”
“No,” she said with a little rush, “I wouldn’t mind. And I’ve got nothing better to do.” She paused, gazing at him with bright eyes. Her hair stuck out comically from her nurse’s cap; there was a distinct smut on her cheek. “I’ve got two hours off to-morrow. Shall we have tea?”
He laughed, his eyes still on the ground:
“That’s what I wanted to ask you.”
“I know, I know, it’s awful, I’ve invited myself,” she ran on, “but oh, Dan, it’s too marvellous for words. There’s hundreds of things we can do in six weeks.” She broke off. “There isn’t any other girl you’ve been writing to you want to take around?”